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Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Dark Angels vs Chaos Space Marines 2000 pts

After my fight with the Blood Angels, I made some tweaks to my list and played a game against Chaos Space Marines. The biggest changes were dropping the DA scouts and devastators, but this allowed me to take one less heavy weapon than before, but gave me 3 more meltas, as well as 20 more models. The role of the scouts was also taken over by the special weapons squad, although the loss of infiltrate was a bit painful.

This game would once again be The Relic, but with a Dawn of War deployment. I actually remembered to take pictures this time.

Deployment. I deployed with a heavy left flank. I had 2 armor 12 buildings in my deployment zone along with a trench line and a low wall.

I deployed the devastators on the battlements of the building on the
left flank and the IG Company command squad inside the building on the
right flank. I then deployed one tactical squad next to the building on
the left and one screening the building on the right. I deployed my IG
infantry squads as a blob and stretched them in a long line behind the
low wall and in the trench line. the Platoon command was directly
behind the blob as well as the DA command squad. I then used my last
two tactical squads to screen the IG squads and placed the snipers to
the right of IG infantry squad in a rock formation piece of area terrain
(I also attached the chaplain to this squad as they were one of the few
units that were not fearless thanks to the sacred standard). I kept
the Valkyrie in reserve with the veterans aboard as well as Marbo.

That little green blob in the center is the relic. The picture doesn't do it justice, but it's basically a small weapon's cache. My opponent, placed one defiler on the corner directly across from my
Right flank with one group of Chaos space marines (with missile
launcher/flamer) in front of the defiler and the other defiler near the
center of the board right next to his dreadnought. next to the center
defiler and dreadnought he had a group of chaos space marines with both
group of Khorne berserkers behind it and then the group of Chaos space
marines with meltas were in front of my left flank. He then attached
his lord with the group of berserkers on his right and the sorcerer with
the other group.

Turn 1: I had won the roll to go first and my opponent failed to seize the initiative. This turn I basically advanced with all of my tactical squads. I moved the DA Command Squad closer to the middle, but other than that I left the rest of my forces stationary. My devastators opened fire on his center defiler and made it explode first turn giving a VP for first blood. I then focused a ton of heavy fire on the dreadnought, but only managed to cause a shaken result on it. The IG Company command squad and the snipers then accounted for two Chaos marine kills one from the center group and one from the group on my right flank. On his turn he returned fire, but only his Defiler managed to find it's target, the blast tore apart 5 tactical marines.

Turn 2: Both my Valkyrie and Marbo arrived this turn. I placed Marbo near his Berserker squad with the sorcerer and zoomed the Valkyrie to sit on top of the Relic. The IG veterans used grav chute deployment, but scattered 10 inches straight back keeping them quite far from the objective. As before, my tacticals continued their advance. and I moved my IG blob out to support the tacticals while keeping the missile launchers stationary by moving in a wedge formation. My shooting this phase caused another hull point of damage on the dreadnought from a glancing hit. Marbo threw his demolition pack and managed to kill both the Chaos sorcerer and a berserker. The rest of my shooting concentrated on the closer chaos marine squad and killed 6 of them. The remaining squad failed their morale (to include on the re-roll from their icon). I also killed two more Chaos marines from the group on my right with some lucky shots from my snipers, but he made his pinning check. On his turn he advanced the dread straight for the Relic. The defiler found its mark again and killed yet another marine from the close squad, 2 veterans , and one of the infantry platoon. His chaos marines then opened fire on the group of marines on my left flank and because of some horrible save rolls and his meltas and plasma manged to kill 7 of them. I failed my morale and fell back 7". On my right flank he managed to kill one tactical with his shooting. Finally his squad that had fallen back had regrouped and poured fire into Marbo, killing him.

Turn 3: on turn 3 I decided to fly the Valkyrie off of the board. I then regrouped my remaining 3 marines in the broken squad and pushed forward with my advance of tactical marines. I also pushed the IG veterans forward. My shooting finally managed to take the last hull point off of the dreadnought, wrecking it. I accomplished this with the lascannon from my IG command squad and this freed up my other weapons to lay a torrent of fire on his closest berserkers and I managed to kill all of them except the skull champion. the rest of my fire accounted for a few more Chaos marines on my right flank as well as 2 berserkers from the other group. I then assaulted the chaos marines on the left flank with my tacticals. I lost my sergeant in the challenge against his champion and lost another tactical. He lost one marine, but I managed to make my morale check. On his turn, he continued to advance with his remaining units. His berserker unit with his lord charged my full strength tactical unit and completely annihilated them. On the right flank we both lost two more marines in the assault.

Turn 4: My Valkyrie returned and put a lascannon shot on his defiler, but didn't do anything. I managed to take the relic with my veterans and then ran back towards my deployment zone. I opened fire on his berserkers and killed several more, to include the lone surviving champion. I also advanced my command squad in preparation of hitting his last group of unengaged marines. On his turn his defiler managed to kill another couple of marines and a few more veterans to include the one with the relic. His lord and remaining berserkers assaulted the group of three tacticals on my left flank, but only managed to kill 2 and my remaining marine got lucky and killed one of his berserkers leaving only 2 berserkers and his lord. the assault on the right flank continued without any resolution.

Turn 5: I flew my Valkyrie off of the board again. My command squad crashed into his last remaining squad of marines and annihilated them. other than that not much happened as there was nothing left to engage. He finally finished off my tactical squad on the right flank, but only had 5 marines left. I also managed to kill all of the berserkers, but his lord was still alive. I retook the relic with my last surviving group of tacticals. We rolled for a turn 6 and got it. However, after I took out his Lord with meltas, my opponent called it.

As you can see from the picture, my marines took the brunt of his attack, but I almost tabled him.

All he had left were the units on the right flank:
Synopsis: We both took heavy casualties, but in the end my massive numbers of missile launchers and meltas turned the tide. He did exceptionally well when he got the charge with his berserkers, but unfortunately had sustained too many casualties getting to assault to maintain any pressure in the end game. We both made some mistakes, but I think his were worse for him. He forgot to run his berserkers almost the entire game, which might have allowed him to get into Assault a lot faster and could have changed the outcome. Additionally, while his surviving Defiler killed several troops, he might have been better served advancing the defiler every turn to add pressure to the middle of the battlefield. After talking to my opponent, I believe he will be dropping the dread and adding jump troops which I think could really help him. As for me, I think I am going to drop the snipers and go with a unit of flamer specials instead to deal with hordes and may switch out a couple of other meltas in the army for flamers as well, as the amount of meltas I had was really over kill. My only major mistake (which my opponent messed up as well) was forgetting overwatch. Other than that, I forgot to move my command squad early in the game, which meant I was scrambling to get them in position for a counter charge later in the game. I also completely ignored my chaplain until the last couple of turns and got no use out of him; I also completely forgot that since he made the snipers fearless, they would not be able to go to ground...luckily this never came into play. As it stood I received VP for first blood, slay the warlord, and for holding the relic, giving a final score of 5-0 DA victory.